Filming - Day 2

We managed to get up to London to film on Saturday 8th January. We managed to get all of the filming done, however we are not sure how much we will actually be able to use.

It was so windy, especially on the bridge, and so parts of the filming is quite shaky. It was also very busy in London and so in parts of the footage you can only just make out where the characters are amongst the crowds. The actors also found it quite hard to film some of the shots, as it was hard to make them look realistic, so we need to re-film parts to perfect them.

However we still have some useful footage to work with, we may just need one more trip up there another day.

Editing

Now we have some useful footage, we have started editing what we have. There was quite a lot we had to cut out, as it just didn't work. However we have quite a lot of filming that we think will work quite nicely in our video.

We originally thought that we would have the scene with rich knocking on Annabel's door in the evening. However once we filmed it we realized that this did not work. The lighting is completely wrong, only half his body is actually lighted. As this did not work, we changed our idea and have re-filmed the scene in the daytime.

This is a shot from the scene where Annabel is getting ready to go out. We liked this shot as we think the lighting is good, and we like the camera angle.

We had to cut out several shots, like this one. However the other shots that we filmed for this scene we really liked, as once again the lighting is quite nice and we think the location works really well.

Filming - Day 1

Once again, we were not able to film on our planned days, due to even more snow. This meant we could not get up to London or Danson park. It was hard to find another day when all our actors were available.

We eventually started filming on Tuesday 28th December. This was a little later than what we had hoped, however we managed to get quite a lot of footage. We started at Ellie's house to shot all of our indoor scenes. This was successful, and we hope that we will be able to use most of this footage. We then went to Danson Park. This was not very successful, and in the end it was to dark to carry on filming. When looking at the footage we decided that the film from Danson was no good. So we decided that in our free lessons on Tuesday 4th January we would go to Danson and re-film, and to London to get those scenes done. What we thought would be the easiest scene at Danson turned out to take several re-takes, but we eventually got there. We now think we should be able to use this footage in our final video.

We did not manage to get up to London, as it took longer than planned at Danson and it would have been too dark to film in London. And so we have planned to finish our filming on Saturday 8th January. Hopefully there will be no more snow!

Editing Effects

Now we are ready to film we need to start thinking about the effects we are going to include in our video. After talking about different things, we came up with several ideas:

Transitions

We have decided we are going to use several different transitions throughout our music video. One of the transitions we will use will be cuts. These will probably be our main transition. We think this will be effective as it will make scenes appear more dramatic. Another transition we will use will be cross dissolves. These will be on the slower parts of the video, for example when we have a change of scene or a change of time. The last transition we will use will be fades. These will be used for the memories, there will be a fade into the memory and a fade out again.

Editing Effects

One effects we are going to use is to make part of the video in black and white. This will be for the flashbacks. We think this will look very effective as it will emphasize that it is a memory/flashback. It will highlight that it is in the past, and then the color will go back to normal when the video goes back to reality. We do not know how we will do this at the moment and so we need to do some research into this.

Split Screen

We have decided to make two of the shots into split screens. We think this will look effective as it will show both sides of the story, it will show the girlfriend and the boyfriend at the same time. This will allow us to see the actions of both characters at the same time. Agin we need to do some research on how to go about doing this.

Magazine Adverts

For our second ancillary task, Ellie and I have decided to create a magazine advertisement for the release of our music video. Our magazine advertisement will relate to our music video, and may show images from the video. This will ensure that the advert follows some sort of house style, so that the advert is instantly recognizable.

Looking at these advertisements below, the artist is generally pictured on the front. The name of the album and the release date are written below. The artists name and the song track are written in bigger writing at the top.

All of these advertisements above have a similar layout, there is a main image, a style to the video and it is quite clear what genre the music is. This seems to be the most conventional style of magazine adverts, with a main image and information about the albums at the bottom. I think it is important that the artist is the main feature of the advert because it makes it much more recognizable to people.

The layout of this magazine advert is slightly different. There is no main picture. However the artists name is in big colorful writing at the top of the poster. It is very eye catching. The fact that there is not a picture of Britney on here shows how iconic Britney is. Being a worldwide superstar, people do not need to see a picture of her to know who she is. This will not be the case with our video, as it is a first album, and so we will need a picture of our artist. This advert still follows some of the conventional themes however, it still has all the information about the album at the bottom of the poster. This advert also follows a house style, it is the same as the actual 'circus' album and also the video for the single 'circus.' This makes it iconic for Britney fans, as as soon as you see it you know what album it is from.

Out of all the magazine adverts I have looked at, I think ours will most look like the Plan B one. This is because we have already decided we want the CD cover to be dark, with white writing and lighting around the artist. To follow a house style we will have a dark magazine advert as well, with the lighting effects. I think the way the Plan B advert is quite simple and not over done is quite eye catching.

Shooting Schedule

Now we have finished the animatic and most of our planning, Ellie and I are ready to start filming our music video. We originally planned to go to London and start our filming on the 1st of December. However we then got snowed in for a week. The transport was not running properly and so this made getting up to London impossible. Even if we could get up there the filming would look rubbish as there would be slushy snow and ice everywhere. We couldn't even film the indoor scenes as we couldn't get into school to get a video camera. Now the snow has finally cleared we have arranged more dates.

Friday 17th December we will shoot all of our indoor scenes. All our actors are available and we don't need to worry about the weather conditions so this will definitely go ahead.

Saturday 18th December we will travel up to London and film at the Millennium Bridge and embankment. We will then go to Greenwich Park to film scenes there. This is as long as transport is all running fine.

If we are able to film on these days then we should get most of our filming done, which means we can then start editing the film and start working towards producing a rough cut.

Animatic

Here is our finished animatic. These are our initial ideas, and so when we come to filming certain aspects of the video may change slightly. However this gives us a really good starting point to start filming our video, as we now know exactly what we need to do.